Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Europe & Central Asia

Learning to Love the European Union

by , | May 14, 2009

Most Europeans today can travel from Athens to Helsinki without a visa or changing currency, thanks to membership in the European Union (EU). In the current throes of the global economic crisis, the Euro zone is an enviable shelter to weather the storm. But 50 years after its creation, the EU can appear as hapless as Agamemnon waiting for a wind to blow his fleet to Troy. With campaigning now in full swing for the European Parliament elections in June — the largest supranational democratic endeavor ever — the EU is stalled, desperately in need of a few breaks to bring it back on course.

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Obama and Medvedev on Nukes

by , | Apr 7, 2009

Committing the United States and Russia "to achieving a nuclear free world," Presidents Obama and Medvedev issued a joint statement breathtaking in its positive tone. It marks an astonishing shift from the hostile policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations and offers new hope to a world weary of the endless nuclear arms race. Their statement concludes:

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The War on Yugoslavia, 10 Years Later

by , | Apr 6, 2009

It has been 10 years since the U.S.-led war on Yugoslavia. For many leading Democrats, including some in top positions in the Obama administration, it was a "good" war, in contrast to the Bush administration’s "bad" war on Iraq. And though the suffering and instability unleashed by the 1999 NATO military campaign wasn’t as horrific as the U.S. invasion of Iraq four years later, the war was nevertheless unnecessary and illegal, and its political consequences are far from settled.

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The Afghan Rubik’s Cube

by , | Apr 2, 2009

Afghanistan is a gatherer of metaphors: "crossroads of Asia," "graveyard of empires," and the "Great Game," to name a few. It might be more accurate, however, to think of it as a Rubik’s Cube, that frustrating puzzle of intersecting blocks that only works when everything fits perfectly. The trick for the Obama administration is to figure out how to solve the puzzle in a timeframe rapidly squeezed by events both internal and external of that war-torn central Asian nation.

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The NATO Summit: Openings for a New Nuclear Posture

by , | Apr 2, 2009

NATO’s 60th anniversary summit comes at a time when the Atlantic alliance is struggling with its mission in Afghanistan, as well as with ongoing questions about its overall purpose in the post-Cold War world. The meeting will formally kick off what’s expected to be a two-year review of the alliance’s Strategic Concept (SC). Integral to this strategic discussion will be the question of what role nuclear weapons should play. Current doctrine calls them essential to security and the alliance itself. But leaders from key countries in the alliance, most notably from the United States and the United Kingdom, have called this certainty into question. This article will review reasons why NATO should change its nuclear doctrine, the obstacles such a change would face, and two guidelines for what that change should involve.

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To Be or NATO Be

by , | Apr 2, 2009

It hasn’t taken long at all for the Obama administration’s honeymoon with Europe to wear thin. The handling of the global economic crisis was the first breach. And directly on the heels of the G20 summit will come NATO’s 60th anniversary summit at a time when there is no consensus at all — even within Europe — about what should happen with the beaten-up Atlantic Alliance. Everyone seems to agree, though, that the alliance is in crisis — and maybe even in its death throes. But while the Europeans seem to be thinking about collective security with open minds, the Americans simply repeat the mantra that NATO must be and that more NATO is better than less.

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